19:52 - SpawdophonikDoes anyone live in an American suburb, if so is it still like this:

19:33 - Marcel Hubregtsebtw if you want to hear some really off the wall covers when compared to the originals listen to this split [link]

19:32 - Marcel HubregtseYeah that's a great cover. Loved at first listen when I got hold of the vinyl version of One in Darkness, Two in Damnation, Three in Death, 2002 - 2007 compilation on their tour in 2013.

Andreas Hedlund [a.k.a. Vintersorg] has found his way back home with the release of Vintersorg' sixth full-length album entitled Solens Rötter (Origins of the Sun). After three years spent in different musical projects, namely Borknagar, Cronian and Waterclime, he reunited with fellow bandmate Mattias Marklund to explore somewhat of a return to their core sound with a new, more mature approach to melody acquired from his musings with his solo project, Waterclime.

From the start, the accent has been put on the folk aspect of their music rather than the crazed hallucinogenic out-of-space progressive content present in the trilogy of previous albums. Browsing through the track titles, it does not take long to realize that all songs on the album are in Swedish, something that had not happened since 1999's Ödemarkens Son. With that in mind, the band also cut off Steve Di Giorgio [bass] and Asgeir Mickelson [drums] from the recording line-up. But fear not, power remains omnipresent on Solens Rötter as obvious from the opening track "Döpt I En Jökelsjö" onward.

The several voices of Vintersorg are filling the song structures nicely as usual. However, what makes this album stand out in their discography is the easiness of bringing memorable melodies into the main musical build. This is achieved with Andreas' unique voice and the use of acoustic guitars and other folk elements.

Arguably the catchiest record of theirs, Solens Rötter is another Vintersorg great album but it might disappoint some hard-core fans who were expecting more out of their experimentation phase. But when all is said and done, Solens Rötter is a surprisingly fresh release in their discography. With the emphasis on folk elements, the Swedish lyrics all the way through and overall grand song-writing, the album breaks the circle created by the three previous albums, takes a look back at the past and opens a new window into the future.

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----member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/

As a fan I can't say I hate any of their albums, although I have been tending to listen to their most recent releases much more often than those of their experimentation phase, and their earlier ones even less.

This album in particular represents a bridging album in my view; experimentation was still very much a large part of the way Vintersorg approached things, but not pulled off here to such unusual results as albums like the previous "The Focusing Blur," which is certainly one of the strangest in their discography, especially in the vocals.

They not only start to toy more with the neoclassical sound on this one, but use it more as a primary basis for their tunes, and explore it in such depth that it becomes a clearer element of their style. I feel this approach comes to dominate the way they've been writing their songs ever since, which is what I like best about Jordpuls and Orkan, that and the smoother sense of melody and vocal work. Plus they drop most (not all on Solens Rötter) of those "spacey" elements from this album onward. As was mentioned in this review, it's very much a return to focusing on the folk aspect in their metal, with a noticeable recurrence of the black metal influence to their sound in the albums following this one.